I've taken the actual exam twice. 162 and a cancelled score. This will be my final retake.

Just PTed test 56 (timed classroom setting). LG: -2 (Ran out of time on the last two questions)LR: -3 (ran out of time) and -0 (had 3 minutes extra time) RC: -6 (didn't know wtf the third passage was about) for RC.

Overall: -11, 170 according to the scale.

I've gone through the PS books twice. I've gone through all three Manhattan books in the last two months. The Manhattan books were a big help. I never felt so confident during the LGs and LRs but my RC is still lagging behind. At this point with my limited amount of time, are there any other resources out there for me to exploit or should I just do a bunch of PTs?

I'm planning to do 1 PT a day and review the taken exams extensively until the start of June.

Is there a better plan of attack or should I keep doing what I'm doing?

The difference, obviously, is that cambridge includes many easy questions too. Which is fine. Everyone should be practicing their uncontested layups. Also those packets you linked to are in order of difficulty, which is arguably the same thing if you save the hard ones. I personally liked having the hard ones separated out in a different book though.

I enjoyed and benefited from the challange of doing 4 difficult games in 35 minutes. It was a major part of my final step toward going -0 to -2 consistantly.

Difficult RC + LR probably need more time than usual. Drilling difficult problems for a while, even untimed with a lot of reflection, will further aid you in spotting your weaknesses + will make medium difficulty questions seem like cake when you switch back.

Just something to consider.

Last edited by Nova on Thu May 02, 2013 2:27 am, edited 2 times in total.

Nova wrote:Also, if youre putting in about 3 hours a day doing problems, youre spending at least another 3 reviewing, right??

I'm spending only about half that time reviewing. I'm focusing only on the problems (or entire passages that I struggled on for RC) that I got wrong while briefly going over the problems I got right.

I was the same way and prefered to plow through everything.

But honestly reflection is really important and you should consider investing more time in it. Especially since you dont sound like you have stamina issues. re working the problems shortly after doing them and mentally stating why the 4 answer choices are wrong and the correct one is right + really reflecting on why you chose the wrong answers on the ones you missed and how you can avoid those mistakes in the future can be really boring but still very helpful.

RC was my biggest problem too. I never quite cracked it. So in that regard I have nothing to offer except encouragement that you can get the other sections very close to -0 over the course of this next month.

Nova wrote:Also, if youre putting in about 3 hours a day doing problems, youre spending at least another 3 reviewing, right??

I'm spending only about half that time reviewing. I'm focusing only on the problems (or entire passages that I struggled on for RC) that I got wrong while briefly going over the problems I got right.

I was the same way and prefered to plow through everything.

But honestly reflection is really important and you should consider investing more time in it. Especially since you dont sound like you have stamina issues. re working the problems shortly after doing them and mentally stating why the 4 answer choices are wrong and the correct one is right + really reflecting on why you chose the wrong answers on the ones you missed and how you can avoid those mistakes in the future can be really boring but still very helpful.

RC was my biggest problem too. I never quite cracked it. So in that regard I have nothing to offer except encouragement that you can get the other sections very close to -0 over the course of this next month.

I don't have stamina issues, but I do have timing issues. Any advice on that? From what I've read from TLS, you're supposed to be at the point in which you have extra time to review your answers, right? I believe I've read that in guides (probably Noodley's 179 guide). I had to rush my RC, which explains why I missed so many on the last passage. The only problems I tend to miss on the LGs are due to time constraints (the only two I missed on my latest PT was due to the fact that I ran out of time and had to guess D on both).

I suppose more focus on review would help me nail the easier questions faster so that I'll have time for the harder ones + section review.

Timed vs timed? How many questions per drilling session? I'd imagine it's not prudent to drill the entire pack and then review. I was thinking about doing 15 questions per 20 minutes and then reviewing (like how I did in the Manhattan book).

tuffyjohnson wrote:But if you have all the 10 actual books you have all the questions in the 905 book. Right?

Yeah, but it's useful drilling difficult question after difficult question...of the same type. You start to subconsciously categorize the questions you see on exams. You start to see the pattern and you get quicker at them because you know exactly what you're looking for and how they're going to try to trick you. It's hard to explain, but it works. I'm already seeing results from my recent PTs.

ManoftheHour wrote: I was thinking about doing 15 questions per 20 minutes and then reviewing (like how I did in the Manhattan book).

That sounds legit.

From what I've read from TLS, you're supposed to be at the point in which you have extra time to review your answers, right? I believe I've read that in guides (probably Noodley's 179 guide). I had to rush my RC, which explains why I missed so many on the last passage. The only problems I tend to miss on the LGs are due to time constraints (the only two I missed on my latest PT was due to the fact that I ran out of time and had to guess D on both).

Im sure soon those simple ordering games will take you 5 or less minutes, and youll have plenty of time for advanced games. AR is so mechanical, I think finishing with time to spare has a lot to do with being efficient and automatic. Reps will get you there.

I personally never had more than a five minutes after LR/AR to spare, so instead of reviewing with 2-3 minutes, I just chilled and took a short mental break. To each their own, though.

Looks like an incredible resource. Definitely looking into buying this.

I highly recommend it. The Cambridge series is good, but half the problems are easy problems that you could probably do in 40 seconds. This book contains only the hardest ones (the ones you're most likely to miss). I feel that drilling them has helped me out tremendously. Even the worst problems I can do now not because I understand the right answer, but because I can confidently point out the four wrong answers. For the tough problems, there are answer choices that I cannot comprehend but am confident they are correct because the other four answers are evidently wrong.